We dream the world into being. I believe this is a deep truth, and I believe there is something magical to be found in lucid dreaming.

Knowledge and imagination swirl and caress each other teasingly. In the waking world, one can know for certain that one is imagining some wondrous fantasy, but one cannot, we are told, manifest one’s imagination into life. In the dream world, one can imagine that they know something is “really happening”, but one cannot quite control one’s imagination to manifest what one wants.

Yet in lucid dreaming one knows they are imagining, and one can imagine anything they wish, manifesting it before their eyes in all the true-to-life reality-mimicking quality that dreams provide. I think, perhaps, this suggests that there is a kind of waking state of fantastical knowing which is the opposite of lucid dreaming and which holds all the manifesting power of the latter.

Lucid dreaming could, then, be a powerful to tool in learning the most powerful skill of them all: manifesting reality.

Learning lucid dreaming is more than merely recognizing that one is dreaming, but the ability to recognize a dream from reality is the first step. I myself have a few clues that tell me if I am dreaming (yours may be different). The first clue is the obvious fantasy of a dream. In a dream where I encountered a tornado, I knew it was a dream when I then saw five more all around me. It’s the improbable things that tell me I’m probably dreaming.

The second clue is my lack of co-ordination or ability to make things happen in a dream. In a dream I find it impossible to hit the right buttons on a phone, for instance, or carry out other simple functions. I fumble about, unable to act on the world.

The third clue is a bit more subtle. If I find myself trying to decide, in a dream, if I am indeed dreaming — I probably am! Yet still there have been times when I knew for sure I was awake, only to wake up. The point is that if I’m questioning it at all, or making a decision about my state of wakefulness, I am likely in fact dreaming.

Knowing these facts may help me to take things a step further: to know I am dreaming and stay within the dream, imagining a world before my sleeping eyes that bends to my will.